Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are working to offer you the best virtual assistant

Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are enhancing their methods regarding artificial intelligence and virtual assistance, in order to start 2017 with new projects that can captivate the public.

This year had a lack of spectacular technological launches, maybe with the exception of the brand new glasses from Snapchat Inc. However, the most prominent technology companies were not working on products that users can wear or have, literally speaking. These companies spent the year working on artificial intelligence concerning voice recognition, ergo, orientation toward virtual assistance.

The Cortana-powered speaker is set to launch in 2017 Image Credit: Microsoft

What the companies have been doing

Google just released a whole body of codes from their famous DeepMind. Facebook introduced a series of simple videos that explained how artificial intelligence works exactly. Microsoft published a large dataset of question and answers that are oriented to the training of already existing and upcoming assistants.

Amazon premiered Amazon-Lex, a service that wants to teach developers how to include voice recognition and virtual assistance technology to distinct applications. All of this was in the past few weeks and proves that artificial intelligence is, in fact, one of the general priorities within the tech world.

Regarding Microsoft, the announcement of the new Cortana Skills Kit was a huge improvement to the company’s interest. The fact that in 2017, their first personal artificial assistant will be available to perform third party commands is great news for the Washington-based firm. Even a Cortana software development kit (SDK) is set to debut in 2017, so Cortana will be present in much more devices than just computers.

Amazon also introduced significant innovations in the artificial assistance field. The company announced the first incorporation of their deep learning services, meaning the inclusion of Lex own framework, along with the addition of enormous amounts of new built-in commands concerning Alexa’s Skills Kit.

In this matter, the hotel Wynn at Las Vegas, Nevada, announced this week that it has plans of putting at least one Amazon Echo in every one of their hotel rooms. At first, the guest will be able to conduct several simple tasks like using the air conditioner, the TV, and the lights. However, the franchise has stated that they want to incorporate this artificial assistance technology in the casino, which means more complex tasks for Alexa and Echo.

Right now, the tech companies are making enormous efforts to improve artificial and virtual assistance. Mainly Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google and China’s Baidu are investing considerably in the development of this sophisticated technology, in order to avoid mistakes on software performance.

“Our goal is to push the error rate down to 1 percent. That’s where you can really trust the device to understand what you’re saying, and that will be transformative,” says Adam Coates, team leader of the Baidu’s artificial intelligence lab in Sunnyvale, California.